New crackdown on drug menace

Date: 30/11/1995

By Rory Watson

EU leaders are set to endorse a comprehensive new strategy for tackling the scourge of drugs at their forthcoming summit in Madrid.

Their endorsement will reflect the political importance which all EU governments now attach to stamping out an illegal trade which brings misery to millions and fuels crime.

A report which will be presented to EU leaders in Madrid on 15-16 December will offer a variety of ways in which Maastricht Treaty powers shared between member states and EU institutions can be harnessed to clamp down on illicit trafficking, develop international cooperation and promote public health.

The Commission has underlined the importance it attaches to giving the fight against drugs a higher profile by creating a new justice and home affairs task force under Commissioner Anita Gradin.

Gradin is making the fight against drugs one of her top priorities and is keen to foster cooperation between national and European authorities. “I think it is high time that we collect information on how each member state tackles its drug problem and also discuss how we can work closely together,” she said.

Based on data being compiled by the European Monitoring Centre on Drugs and Drug Addiction in Lisbon, the Union is expected to have, for the first time, a clear picture of the scale of the drug problem within its frontiers by the end of the year.

Commission figures released last year suggested there were anything from 450,000 to one million drug addicts in the then 12-member-state Union.

The new emphasis on international cooperation will go some way to defusing American criticism that, partly due to the delay in fully establishing Europol, Europe has been slow in developing closer links with the US in the fight against drugs and crime.

“We will try and see how our emerging common foreign and security policy can come into play here. We will also see drugs being systematically added to the agenda of issues we discuss with our international partners, stressing the need to comply with UN conventions and standards,” said a senior Brussels official.

The EU's justice and home affairs troika recently met ministers responsible for combating drug trafficking from Andean Pact countries - Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru and Venezuela - and an agreement between the two sides on the control of chemicals used to make drugs is expected to be signed at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels next week. They are also committed to agreements on the exchange of evidence, judicial cooperation and money laundering.

The EU may also support the bid by Andean countries to sign up to the Council of Europe's convention on laundering, search, seizure and confiscation of the proceeds from crime.

Similar arrangements are likely to be explored with other groups, such as the Asean countries, which have traditionally had commercial links with the Union, but are now seen as major sources of illegal drugs.

The same concerns are expected to feature in the EU's expanding contacts with Central and Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean.

Within the Union, the Commission, European Parliament and member states are investigating ways of combating drug addiction and clamping down on illicit trafficking. A conference on drugs policy in Europe to be held in Brussels on 7 and 8 December will be a first step.

“We want to bring together for the first time national officials handling all aspects of drug policy. We want to break down barriers and assess the nature and impact of member states' legislation. We want to get accurate information, not dramatise the situation,” explained one official.